I bricklinked one of these, and just started building it. I spent $916, mostly because I had never used bricklink before. I can see where I could have shaved lots of money off, since shipping killed me with over 30 orders and I also bought around 500 extra pieces. Regardless, it was a fun learning experience, and I got an awesome display set out of it.
For anyone interested, here's the changes I made due to price or rarity of pieces..
31 White Plate 2 x 2 with Pin Type 2 (2476b) - 14 white, 6 light gray, 9 dark bluish gray, 2 yellow
41 Light Bluish Gray Technic, Pin Connector Round (Pin Joiner Round) (75535) swapped with slot version (62462)
1 qty 6 x 14 dark red plate (3456) in red
28 qty (4095) 6.6L bar swapped with 28 qty 6L bar (63965)
60 qty Light Bluish Gray levers (298c05) swapped with light gray (298c03)
21 qty Light Bluish Gray wedge 3x2 right (6564) swapped with 63 plate 3x2 right (43722) x3 for wedge
21 qty Light Bluish Gray wedge 3x2 left (6565) swapped with 63 plate 3x2 left (43723) x3 for wedge
1 Light Bluish Gray Round Dish 10 x 10 Inverted with Spokes Pattern (50990px3) swapped with 1 dish (50990)
2 Light Bluish Gray boat rigging (47996) in black
1 Technic Flex-System Hose (75c08) in black
2 Technic Flex-System Hose (75c12) in dark grey
2 ChromeSilver Plate 1 x 1 Round (4073) in metallic silver
16 yellow Technic Brick 5 x 5 Right Angle with Holes (32555) in black
I tried to only cut corners on internal pieces, but those boat rigging pieces just cost so much. You don't even notice the technic right angle pieces, which I assume Lego only included in yellow for an easier build. Taking three of the 3x2 wedge plates to build one 3x2 brick wedge was a simple way around those being hard to find for a reasonable price. The levers are too small to stand out in light gray, but I also bought 60 of the black levers with light bluish bases so I could swap out that lever piece if it bothered me.
It sucks that I had to get the boat rigging in black, especially since I did end up spending so much money on the set. The black really sticks out, but I'm thinking of putting LED's back there anyways.
